Angry Moon Rising
by reggibar
Summary: The strength of a friendship is tested by its cruelest enemy - The Moon. WARNING - This story is slash.


Severus Snape lie on his back, eyes closed, hands folded on his stomach, while he rested. He'd been down in his lab for days working on The Potion. Surviving only on sandwiches brought to him by a trembling Winky, Snape had browsed among the simmering cauldrons supervising their progress as if they were his students. Now, after more than ten days of labor, he lay on his cot exhausted from the effort.   
  
As he lay there, his mind began to drift. He remembered years before when he was consumed by anger and guilt. Everyone cut a wide swath around him, avoiding his eyes, avoiding any kind of contact at all. There had been almost no compassion at all to be found that was meant for Snape; until Lupin had come back to Hogwarts.   
  
Once, Remus had sat with him for hours in silence while they stared across a still lake. How Snape had wanted him then! Remus had sensed a deep need in Snape and had satisfied it with his simple presence.   
  
Another time, Remus had touched his shoulder in a gesture of comfort when no one else dared. Only Remus had seen him weep one night and had not asked why, but instead had crawled in behind him and held him until he slept. Now, Remus Lupin needed Snape.  
  
As the high moon approached, Lupin had grown increasingly agitated. Easily aggravated by students, he had screamed at a first year who was late for class, dismissing him straightaway. Severus Snape would not have tolerated tardiness, but Lupin's harsh reaction was simply an indication of what was coming. It was a predecessor of Snape's increasing concern. This angry intolerant man was not the Remus Lupin that Snape knew and loved.  
  
Snape always had a potion prepared for Lupin for during these times. Each month Snape struggled to alter the potion slightly to make Lupin's transformation more tolerable...to fight the transformation. Yes, Lupin was a werewolf.   
  
However, ever since he had retrieved an old potions book from an even older wizard, Severus had become more obsessed with healing his friend, with helping him. And this time was a little different. This time, Severus Snape had discovered something new.  
  
As Snape lie there on his cot drifting into a restless sleep, brow furrowed, mouth in a frown and twitching, images flashed before him in a strobe lit dream. There was a grasping and tearing of clothing, teeth were bared, there was blood and sweat, and howling. Snape was pinned against the wall while furred claws ripped at his robes and jaws gaped open, drooling, hovered over his throat....  
  
"SSStttopppp!" Snape yelled and sat bolt upright drenched in sweat. Back, on his cot, his heart thumped painfully in his chest as he cursed his own weakness of spirit. "A nightmare, for God sake!" he spat, getting up, kicking away a knotted blanket, angry with himself for his own fears and insecurities.  
  
**  
  
The Potion was finished and was carefully transferred into a flask with a tightly fitting cap. The flask Snape chose to use was one of old depression blue-glass with a single word molded into its side. Hope.  
  
He pocketed the flask and exited his lair during the late afternoon of the 13th of the month; hours before the full moon.   
  
Snape stood at Lupin's heavily wooded door at the top of the north tower knocking for almost 15 minutes before the door, finally unlatched, opened up to him. Lupin stood there before him, looking dirty, disheveled, and thin. Snape opened his mouth to remark, but thought better of it. He remained silent as he entered the sunlit room. He walked through the door and past his friend.  
  
When he was deep inside the room, Snape turned and faced Lupin presenting the flask. Bluntly, he spoke: "Drink it now, Lupin. Just shut up and drink it."  
  
Lupin stared at him, his eyes traveling from Snape's deeply lined face to the blue flask.  
  
"No more, Snape." Said Lupin, his voice sounding as tired as he looked. "No more. Just go now."  
  
"It will be different this time, I promise you," said Snape, not pleading quite yet; but still demanding. "This time it will let you transform. It will rob from you the *strength* you require to attack; it will keep from you the *will* you need to attack."   
  
Snape paused, studying the angry man who faced him. "Remus, we have spent years trying to fight the transformation; tonight we will let it happen together. This potion will let us do it together."  
  
Remus laughed at Snape, shaking his head. "You theatrical bastard. What will it *really* do, Snape? Kill me? Put me out of your misery? Or perhaps it will immobilize me so that you can study me with those dark, analytical eyes of yours." Remus spat this out roughly, glaring hatefully at Snape.  
  
"No, you miserable shit," growled Snape, "it will give you a shiny coat. Now sit down and drink the damned thing before I chain you to a wall and make you drink it!" Snape approached Remus menacingly, the flask held in a white-knuckled hand.  
  
"If I drink it," Remus said, a sly, wicked grin on his face, "will you still chain me up? Please?"  
  
It annoyed Snape when Lupin was crude like this, but it gave Snape some reassurance. His old friend was in there, somewhere, displaying that same roguish sense of humor Snape had discovered years before.  
  
"You drink this and I'll give you a bath, you stinky goat. How about that?" Snape held out the flask again to Lupin, who, relinquishing, took it and drank it down.  
  
Lupin felt the affect of The Potion immediately. "I need to sit" was all he could manage to say. He sat on a hard, upright wooden chair at his desk, head in his hands, while Snape prepared his bath.  
  
"You're not really going to give me a bath are you, Snape? I can't imagine you even wanting to do this." Lupin spoke with a slur, head resting in his hands as Snape worked silently on the bath.   
  
When he was finished preparing it, Snape stood up and walked quietly over to his weakening friend and, helping him up, assisted him to the bath.  
  
Snape undressed him carefully, stopping once or twice to correct Lupin's balance. This, he had done before, when he had helped a drunken Remus into bed, assuring him he would not sleep in his boots. As crude as Remus could be, for some reason, Remus steadfastly believed it was uncouth to sleep in his boots. Severus chuckled, remembering the drunken lecture that Remus had once given him about boots.   
  
This time, however, Lupin's problem was much more serious than too much whiskey on an otherwise boring night. As Snape helped Lupin lower his thinning body into the steaming water, Snape struggled to remember better times.  
  
Lupin leaned back in the large, claw-footed tub and easily relaxed as Snape's potion took affect. Snape picked up an oversized coral sponge and submersed it in hot, sudsy water and brought it up, streaming, to bathe Lupin's chest. Once, Lupin opened his eyes and watched how Snape was carefully washing him and then rinsing him off. His touch was so light, so tender. It was as if Snape believed Lupin was made of some fine china that could never be replaced if broken. Lupin quietly repeated, "I can't imagine you even wanting to do this."  
  
And Snape softly replied, more to himself than to Lupin, "There is nothing I would not do for you, Remus."  
  
This act of bathing his friend aroused Snape. He was acting out a secret fantasy, bathing Lupin like this. And he was angry with himself for feeling aroused when Lupin was so ill. Lupin wasn't even fully aware all of this was happening. Snape wondered if he would ever have the nerve to suggest such a thing if Lupin were fully awake and alert.   
  
Snape knew the answer. Snape could never suggest anything as seductive as a bath; it was not his way.   
  
After Snape helped Lupin out of the tub and began to dry him off, he noticed the darkening hair on his chest. He noticed the muscles in his legs and arms had started to become shorter, gradually, as if they were bunching up.   
  
As darkness of night slowly slid upon them, Snape quickly finished dressing the lucid Remus and sat him in a large patio type chair. Normally, Snape would have chained Lupin to this chair as the chair was heavily bolted to the ground. Snape would have rode out the night with the wild animal that was his friend, his lover, chained before him. But not tonight; tonight was different.  
  
Snape hurried to the door and finished bolting it high up, where Remus, when fully transformed, could not reach. Snape slowly approached the man before him and watched as nails grew darker and longer and teeth began to yellow and lengthen.  
  
"For...God's sake, Sev. Please restrain me..." Lupin started to stand but slumped back down in the chair. Hair was darkening around his face, nose lengthening to a muzzle. It was too late now, thought Snape.   
  
"My God, what have I done?" Asked Severus Snape of himself as he watched his friend, unbound, change before his very eyes, angry teeth exposed, clothing ripping, muscles and skin, straining under the stress.   
  
The wolf was complete now, but had fallen out of the chair. It slowly stood and approached Severus Snape, who was steadily backing up until he came to a stop at the edge of the desk with no where else to go. There was an animalistic rage in those wolf eyes. Mouth drooled, teeth exposed under an angry snarl, the wolf approached him slowly, stalking him.   
  
Snape indeed had nowhere to go and was facing the very enemy that had invaded his dreams in the previous nights before. But as the wolf approached, it seemed too weary to attack. Once, it's muzzle actually brushed Snape's arm, leaving Snape gasping in fear, but the animal was too tired to even bite. It backed away from Snape, giving him some room to move.   
  
Snape almost found it almost amusing to see his friend circle a spot twice before curling up in a pool of fur and fangs before him. He was not even five feet away.   
  
The moon was still full and bright; it seemed to Snape like it was blazing overhead. But the wolf lie on the floor, muzzle rested on paws, eyes half-closed. Snape slowly approached Lupin and held out his hand tentatively. A growl started to build in the belly of the animal and Snape backed off a few inches, and then progressed again, hand outstretched.  
  
Six or seven times, Snape backed off, and approached, each time gaining a few inches, closing in the gap that existed between he and Remus. When Snape finally softly touched the space between the wolf's ears, he gathered up his resolve and began to caress. Soon, the caresses evolved into long strokes on gray-black fur.   
  
Snape maneuvered himself until he was beside the wolf that was his friend. Snape sat down slowly beside the animal, still stroking. He began to hum a soft song. As the wolf's eyes slowly closed, Snape continued to hum. Tears threatened in Snape's eyes. It felt so impossibly good that someone, even a wild animal crazed by a full moon, would allow him to touch him and to attend to him. It was almost fulfilling that someone needed him.  
  
Snape slowly lay down beside the animal, still stroking, and closed his eyes. He could hear a soft guttural growl again, but this time it was a growl of contentment. The animal got half up and moved closer to Snape, nuzzling in against him.   
  
As Snape felt the warm breath upon his neck, his heart quickened and he could once again feel the fear creeping up from his stomach, the dread building in his gut: what if things went wrong? But he fought to win control over his fears. Soon he felt the wolf lean into him and drift off into sleep. Lupin's breathing became slow and deep. As the hot fur pressed against Snape's chest, this time, he knew that he and Remus had won.  
  
**  
  
Snape awoke feeling his friend's lean naked body pressed against him and in a sound sleep. Below the tower, he could hear the children laughing, and outside the small tower windows, birds chirped and owls merrily swooped. Snape propped himself up and reached down a possessive hand and smoothed it over the hard buttocks, felt muscled thigh and flat stomach.  
  
"Mmmm" Lupin responded.  
  
"I don't know how to tell you how beautiful-" Snape began, but he stopped when he seen the look on Lupin's face. Lupin was looking at Snape in complete awe.  
  
"What?" growled Snape.   
  
Lupin sleepily smiled up at Snape. "Your capacity for tenderness astounds me, Severus," answered Lupin, simply and honestly.   
  
Snape started to speak but suddenly could not find the words. He just lay there, propped up on one elbow looking into Lupin's eyes.   
Lupin pulled Snape into his embrace. They made slow passionate love that morning. Each totally amazed in the powers and beauty that the other possessed. A new and stronger trust newly created emerged between them.  
  
Fin.  
  
  
  



End file.
